The Bahamas Competent Authority advises that the “tax information exchange” portal for Bahamian financial institutions to submit information on FATCA reportable accounts opened on 19 July 2016 and will close on 26 August 2016 at 5 p.m. EST.

Reporting financial institutions must report through the “tax information exchange” portal even if they have no reportable accounts for the reportable year.

Data must be prepared in either Excel or CSV format to upload to the portal.

Files submitted must be complete, containing all the records to be reported.

If the file has errors, a new complete file must be resubmitted.

Each time a file is uploaded and processed in the portal, all prior loaded data will be deleted from the system and replaced by the data in the new file.

Accuracy of the data is the responsibility of the financial institution. The system only checks for format and required fields per listed validations.

For financial institutions with no reportable accounts, a “Nil reporting” must be performed through the electronic attestation online at the portal.